CONTENT THEFT

Content theft info, Plagiarism Detector advice and free tools, reporting online plagiarism, how to file DMCA Take Down Notice, and How to Prevent Plagiarism

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January 10, 2012

Content theft is a pervasive problem on the Internet. This article will teach you how to detect plagiarism, how to stop content theft and how to prevent plagiarism of your online content.

Content theft of digital assets is being battled en masse by Hollywood's TV and movie producers, who claim that over one-half million works are pirated every year and shown on free sites online. They have big bucks to fight content theft and their efforts may very well help everyone deal with content theft in the long run.

For now, there is no such lobby for the average website owner and content writer.

Content theft of online copywriting creates enormous problems with search engine rankings, often the backbone of bringing traffic and income to the owner of the content. Content theft produces duplicate content issues, sometimes outranks your original content on search engine results pages (SERPS), and increases the competition for your targeted keywords.

You own the copyright to anything you create from the moment it is posted on the Internet. The copyright protection will extend well past your lifetime. You do not need to register your copyright to be protected under the law. If you think you will file a lawsuit over a copyright violation (very expensive and seldom done), then you would need to formally register your copyright and contact an attorney.

But what can the small website owner and content writer do about content theft right now?

Plagiarism detection must be part of your daily work routine. You can't combat content theft until you know it has happened. There are four free, easy ways to do this:

1. Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a free service provided by Google that will send you emails whenever it finds content you have requested. Go to Google Alerts and fill out this short form:

• Enter one search query, such as the page title to your article.
• For 'Result type' choose everything.
• I recommend 'Once a day' frequency.
• For 'How many', click on the downward arrow and choose 'All results', remembering that content thieves are rarely the 'best results.'
• For 'Deliver to', click on the downward arrow and choose the option to enter your email address.

Set up a Google Alert for each main keyword phrase in your article. Set up these alerts as soon as you upload a new article. Doing this will advise you when the Google search engine has crawled your new content and will also let you know if Google has found other sites using your article title and/or keyword phrases. Beyond detecting plagiarism, having daily Google Alerts delivered to your inbox keeps you informed about relevant news, articles and commentaries on your main content topics and this can also be useful in identifying backlinking opportunities.

2. Copyscape.com

Copyscape.com is the granddaddy of free plagiarism detectors. The site has a simple, Google-like homepage. All you do is enter a webpage address in the box and hit the 'Go' button.

The free version of Copyscape will allow you to check one webpage at a time. If you own hundreds or thousands of pages, the site also offers a paid subscription service at a reasonable cost which will automatically check for plagiarism of your work every day.

3. Plagiarisma.Net

This plagiarism detection site came online in April, 2010, with some noteworthy features.

Plagiarisma.net offers two options on its homepage. On the left is a box for text, where you can upload 5,000 characters of content to check. The text box supports almost 200 languages. The option on the right allows you to check the URL for one of your webpages.

I chose the URL option, looking for plagiarism of my article Duplicate Content.

This amazing software automatically highlights significant pieces of text in your content and then searches for them.

The results will show any matches for all highlighted text:

You'll get a few 'false positive' results that are a result of common language, such as this example for the phrase big mistake:

Overall, Plagiarisma.Net is an excellent plagiarism detection tool and I recommend that you give it a try.

4. Google Webmaster Tools

If you notice a downturn in your search engine traffic, immediately use a plagiarism detector to see if content theft might be the reason. If you don't have an account with Google Webmaster Tools, sign up for one. In late October, 2011, Google began a service advising account holders when it notices a page with duplicate content that is outranking an account holder's webpage in Google search results. This is a free, and valuable service that helps you keep an eye on content theft and theft of your income.

When you find online plagiarism of your work, take immediate action. The steps below may appear time-consuming, but will really only take you a few minutes. Do everything on this step-by-step plan.

1. Find the Owner

Find the name and contact information of the person or business who stole your content. If you don't find a 'Contact Us' on the website, check for a 'Terms of Service', 'Privacy' or 'Copyright' page, usually linked in the footer. If there is no contact information on the website, check these sources for information:

Try this one first: GoDaddy.com. Go to the site and do a search for the plagiarizing website. Enter the URL in the search box, as if you wanted to buy the domain and hit the green 'GO' button:

GoDaddy will return a result showing that the domain name has already been registered:

Click on the 'WHOIS' option, fill out the captcha requested, and the registrar results will appear.

In this example, searching for the domain hubpages.com reveals an address, phone number and hosting server information.

If GoDaddy.com does not have information on the domain you are searching, try the data base at whois.net. Search the international data base for other domain extensions at InterNIC.

You should at least be able to find the hosting server information. For the example to the right, copy the first Nameserver listed (NS1.YIELDBUILD.COM) and paste it into the search box on Google. That should result in your finding a name, address and other contact information for the server hosting the website. Armed with this information, you're ready to proceed to step 2. (If you don't find contact information for the owner or the host, proceed to step 3.)

2. Contact the Content Thief

Before you contact the plagiarist, take screen shots of your content appearing on his site and save them.

Write a very brief email or fax detailing the content theft, giving the page where it is found on the offending site, and demanding the removal. This should be a personal letter, not a form letter. Give a 24-hour time limit to have the content removed. Warn that you will contact major search engines, the server host for their site and other authorities.

Here is an example of what to write:

Dear _____:

I am the copyright owner of content found on your site at this URL:___________. I demand that you immediately remove my content from your site. If the content has not been removed within 24 hours, I will contact your host server, all advertisers on your site, major search engines and post an account of your theft on several websites.

3. Report the Content Theft

Realize that the content thief might be software programmed to scrape websites and, if that is the case, you will never receive a reply to your email. In the event the owner does reply and removes your content, consider yourself fortunate.

If the owner does not remove your content voluntarily, report the content theft. First, find out who is hosting the site. If you have trouble locating the host, look for the host here.

• If the site is hosted in the U.S., file a DMCA take down notice with the server hosting the website. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) requires a host to remove content that infringes on copyright, but you must file a written complaint with required information. Follow the format to the right. Do not send attachments with your email because your email will not be opened if there are attachments.
• If the site is hosted outside of the U.S., compose the same DMCA letter, but title it: International Copyright Violation.
• Report the content thief to search engines. Even if you can't find a contact to file a DMCA request, you can believe that being removed from the indexes of search engines will have an immediate effect on the content thief. Report content theft to Google by completing the online form. Report content theft to the Bing search engine by sending your DMCA notice to: dmcaagnt@microsoft.com. Reports to Yahoo should be emailed to: copyright@yahoo-inc.com.

• Report the content thief to advertisers on the thief's website. If the website is using Google AdSense, report it to Google at this link.

Other advertiser contact information can be found to the right.

• If you really feel like venting your anger, here's a list of sites that will allow you to post your complaint about content theft:

http://www.ripoffreport.com

http://www.complaintsboard.com

http://consumerist.com/

How to Prevent Plagiarism

There are things you can do to prevent plagiarism of your content. These tips won't prevent content being scraped by software, but they will discourage content theft by humans.

1. Post a copyright notice on every webpage. Use the following format, including the year you created the content and the current year:

Copyright © 2011 - 2012 [your name or business name]. All Rights Reserved.

2. Include a banner from Copyscape.com and/or Plagiarisma.Net, which shows that your webpage is protected by a plagiarism detector company. Both sites give these banners for you to use and you don't need to signup for paid services to use the banners.

3. As soon as you upload new content, document the date and time by immediately posting a link to the content on your Google+ page. If you don't have one, create a free Google+ page now.

4. Cyberspace is filled with content theft robots and one of their favorite places to operate is from your RSS feed. Stealing your RSS feed is a completely automated process and right now there is nothing you can do to prevent it. But you can find out if your content is being stolen this way by registering your feed at this free, plagiarism detector site. You will be notified by email if your content has been stolen.

Whatever you do about content theft, never, EVER, link to the thief's website. Rant about it all over the Internet, just don't link.

Read What is Seo? This article was chosen by HubPages.com as a HubNugget Award winner on December 28, 2011.

Read about Google Panda and what it means for your online content..

Read important information about Duplicate Content.

Read Web Content Writer.

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